Friday, April 28, 2017

Things That We Cannot Say (Update on Life)

I wish I knew how to write this blog post, I wish I knew the words to say. Truth is I’ve written a post, and it is decent post, but it is not my best post. The wording accurately describes how I feel, but for some reason I do not have an emotional connection with what I wrote. 9 times out of 10 I have an emotional connection with what I wrote. I’m proud of my blog post, but for some reason I wasn’t proud of this one. I tried writing it through different angles as well, but it still felt emotionally empty. Whenever I have trouble writing a post it is because I still need time to fully process and reconcile with what happened.

I am tired of processing what happened, seriously how much time do I need to process this? If I try to explain what I’m processing or reconciling with, I will naturally pass blame, inflict shame, and come off as being accusing. Even though those rare emotions have a time and a place, now is not the time and the place. I am better than that, my emotions are my guide but my soul knows when not to listen to my emotions. Right now my spirit is telling me that I will not be able to process these emotions until I am at seminary and am able to put some distance between this year and me. While I cannot go into the details of what I am processing for mental and emotional reason, I will say this….

I am the only Dweller left this year, which means I’m the only one living at the hose. While things worked out for the best, it has been really hard dealing with loneliness and the fear of loneliness.

I wish I could explain more dear reader, but alas I cannot. Not until I’ve put distance between my YAV year and I. I want to be honest and vulnerable with my readers.





Sunday, April 9, 2017

A Walk With Forgiveness

Forgiveness is not for the faint of heart; it takes courage. It takes self-love and the ability to set appropriate boundaries in order to forgive. That is what I learned recently with my struggles on learning how to forgive. Beautiful readers, I would like to explain a little bit more about my struggle with forgiveness. I do not wish to discuss the details of what happened, or put anyone down, but to explain the internal struggle that I have been wrestling with for a couple months now.

I find it ironic that the majority of my wrestling with forgiveness manifested around the start of Lent. To me, Lent is about preparing our hearts for Holy Week, and more specifically, Palm Sunday. It is a time to reconcile and renew our hearts in order to let God’s love and light in. However, how am I supposed to renew my heart when there is so much anger and resentment dwelling there? I told my friend that I don’t want to be angry because I’m tired of it. Resentment and anger are exhausting. Anger is a natural human emotion, however my anger and resentment became so uncontrolled that it started putting distance between people I care about and myself. This bitterness in my heart was because they, who I trusted, hurt me.
To be honest, I’m not sure hurt is even the right word but hurt is the only word that is appropriate for this blog.

One of the main reasons why I struggled with forgiveness was because I did not want to belittle my emotions. I strongly felt and feel (still struggling to decipher if this feeling is still present with me) that if I forgave someone that would be mean that my feelings of being hurt wouldn't matter. It felt like if I forgave someone then all my feelings and emotions of being hurt would be swiped under the rug. To me that felt wrong. I’m not the one that messed up; I’m not the one that caused pain! Shouldn't people listen to me and how I feel since I am the one that got hurt? If I forgave they that would mean that mean my ill feelings and emotions would disappear; and I wasn't ready for that. I still wanted to hold on to those feelings because I wanted them to have validity. I did not forgive they because I wanted my feelings of hurt to be validated and not belittled!

 Not only did this internal struggle made me confront my humanness, it also made me confront my faith. While I find all religions that are centered on their sacred text beautiful, I chose Christianity as my faith path because of its beautiful interpretation on forgiveness and mercy. Growing up Christian, I was taught to forgive others as God has forgiven us. So if I do not forgive they, am I a bad Christian? I know to some this may seem like a silly thought but at the time I genuinely thought that. Based off Christianity, I am supposed to forgive they, but what happened was too big in order to forgive they. Does that mean that what happened is bigger than Christ? Doesn’t that seem anti-Christian to say that something is bigger than Christ? Then it occurred to me, maybe I can forgive they in a way that I didn’t think possible.

By forgiveness, I do not mean naively saying, “Everything is all good.” Forgiveness isn’t turning the other cheek. I believe the type of forgiveness that Christ intended was the ability to acknowledge the scars, but being able to look past them. I have a lot of scars and I don’t think they will ever be healed (keep in mind this is recent), but I have the ability to say, “These scars are there, and they are valid. But you know what, so what?” I have only one life and I love myself more than to spend the rest of my time self-pitying what went wrong in my life. If I focus on all these scars I’m going to drive myself mad with the negative. I believe it is healthier to focus on that which is healed than that which is damaged. For that which is damage, I think it is ok to admit that it is damaged. Regardless of if I can heal the damage or not, I must have the vulnerability to lift it up to God. Only God can use something damaged for something beautiful.

And by lifting up something damaged to God, I am also lifting up that person or persons that caused the damage. I am not able to forgive they for the damage, but I can lift that person up to God so they can be in God’s care. I have to love myself in order to be ok with the damage; I have to be courageous when being vulnerable with God about the damage, and I have to set boundaries when deciphering am I able to forgive this person or not.